Forrest Claypool

Chicago taxpayers shouldn't be forced to choose between educating our children and paying for the retirement of our teachers. But that's the position we're in today. This week, Illinois Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago, will once again try to pass legislation providing some state help for Chicago's teacher pensions. Every Chicago parent, teacher, principal and taxpayer has a lot riding on the bill. Today, Chicago takes money from its classrooms to pay for teacher pensions, while the state pays teacher pension costs for all other school districts. This places Chicago at a huge disadvantage. In fiscal year 2015, the pension "subsidy" for downstate...

Related "Forrest Claypool" Articles

Chicago taxpayers shouldn't be forced to choose between educating our children and paying for the retirement of our teachers. But that's the position we're in today.
This week, Illinois Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago, will once again try to...

Chicago Public Schools has changed the bell schedules at 82 schools in a move the district says will save $13.5 million by reducing transportation costs.
Under the new schedules released Thursday, students at roughly 60 high schools will begin their...

Mayor Rahm Emanuel has named a lobbyist and former top aide to House Speaker Michael Madigan to be the next chief of staff at City Hall.Eileen Mitchell will assume the key post in the Emanuel administration next month. The lobbyist for AT&T will...

Mayor Rahm Emanuel has plenty of problems. One is that he doesn't have enough Forrest Claypools.
The mayor has just one, and he has wisely dispatched his best turnaround pro to rescue the Chicago Public Schools. This is good news.
In 1993, Claypool...

Mayor Rahm Emanuel is expected to soon appoint longtime City Hall troubleshooter Forrest Claypool to head up the embattled Chicago Public Schools, two sources told the Chicago Tribune late Wednesday.
It's a quick change of jobs for Claypool, who was...

On March 11, the Illinois Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the lawsuits challenging SB 1: the 2013 legislation that reformed the pension systems of state and university employees and teachers outside the city of Chicago.
This lawsuit has...

A roughly 2 1/2-mile gap in CTA rail service that lasted 38 years on the Near South Side was eliminated Sunday, when Green Line trains started making stops at a station on Cermak Road near State Street.
The new $50 million Cermak-McCormick Place...

Smartphone service dead spots could be a thing of the past by year's end for thousands of daily CTA riders in Blue and Red Line tunnels, under a $32.5 million deal set to be announced Friday.
The 20-year agreement calls for four major wireless...

A 60-acre site in the Pilsen neighborhood, once reviled for its smoke-belching power plant that contributed to premature deaths and asthma, could be redeveloped into a Chicago Transit Authority bus garage, park and nature walk.
The mayor's office is...

For the second year in a row, the CTA's public budget hearing was mostly not about the budget.
Most of those in attendance Monday night came to plead for the restoration of the No. 11 bus service along Lincoln Avenue on the North Side.
Last year's...

The CTA is cracking down on fraud involving free-ride and reduced-fare Ventra cards, a problem fueled by schemes and illegal card-sharing that costs the agency millions of dollars a year, officials announced Wednesday.
Newly implemented rail station...

The CTA will freeze fares for the second straight year in 2015 and offer a slight increase in Blue and Orange line service aimed at easing crowding, under a proposed $1.44 billion budget that will be unveiled Monday.
The spending plan, which will take...

Smartphones would work like "virtual Ventra cards'' under a $2.5 million plan presented Wednesday to quickly knit together a regionwide mobile transit fare-payment system.
The proposed Ventra smartphone app is far from the simple, universal fare...

CTA, Metra and Pace on Wednesday unveiled plans for a Ventra mobile-ticketing app that will debut next year.
Metra Executive Director Don Orseno told the CTA board at Wednesday's monthly meeting that testing by the commuter railroad will begin...

This week’s story by Tribune reporters Alex Richards and Jon Hilkevitch (“CTA employee dismissals soar under Claypool’s watch,” News, Oct. 14) briefly mentions the more than 1,000 new, good-paying union positions the CTA has created over the past three...

Even before his first day on the job in spring 2011, CTA President Forrest Claypool said his top priority was to clean up the transit agency, in large part by sweeping out rule-breakers and employees who failed to regularly show up for work.
He hasn't...

An average of 27 people a month are risking their lives by trespassing on CTA rail tracks — but that marks a 17 percent reduction over the past year, transit officials said Friday. They attribute the decrease to a new safety campaign. A year before...

An average of 27 people a month are risking their lives by trespassing on CTA rail tracks, but it marks a 17 percent reduction over the past year that transit officials on Friday attributed to a new safety campaign.
A year before the CTA...

CTA efforts to reverse declining bus ridership are not being helped by the Regional Transportation Authority, which is holding back money related to the installation of special traffic signals that give buses green-light priority over other vehicles,...

Update: U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx was in Chicago on Thursday with Mayor Rahm Emanuel formally announce the grant.
The CTA will receive a $35 million grant as the initial federal seed money for the $4.7 billion reconstruction of the north...